A glossary (from grc, γλῶσσα, ''glossa''; language, speech, wording) also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular

domain of knowledge Domain knowledge is knowledge of a specific, specialized discipline or field, in contrast to general (or domain-independent) knowledge. The term is often used in reference to a more general discipline—for example, in describing a software engin ...

with the

definition A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definitio ...

s for those terms. Traditionally, a glossary appears at the end of a

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most commonly associated with

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...

books, in some cases,

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...

novels may come with a glossary for unfamiliar terms. A bilingual glossary is a list of terms in one language defined in a second language or

glossed A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal one or an interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text or in the reader's language if that is different. A collection of glosses is a '' ...

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

s (or at least near-synonyms) in another language. In a general sense, a glossary contains explanations of

concept Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by s ...

s relevant to a certain field of study or action. In this sense, the term is related to the notion of

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...

. Automatic methods have been also provided that transform a glossary into an ontology or a computational lexicon.

History

In medieval Europe, glossaries with equivalents for Latin words in

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

or simpler Latin were in use, such as the

Leiden Glossary The ''Leiden Glossary'' is a glossary contained in a manuscript in Leiden University Library in the Netherlands, Voss. Lat. Q. 69. The Lemma (morphology), lemmata (headword, headwords) come from "a range of biblical, grammatical, and patristic text ...

(ca. 800 CE).

Core glossary

A ''core glossary'' is a simple glossary or

defining dictionary An explanatory dictionary or defining dictionary is a dictionary that provides definitions of word meanings at its entries. It may give additional information on pronunciation, grammar, etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of Engl ...

that enables definition of other concepts, especially for newcomers to a language or field of study. It contains a small working vocabulary and definitions for important or frequently encountered concepts, usually including idioms or metaphors useful in a culture.

Automatic extraction of glossaries

Computational approaches to the automated extraction of glossaries from corpora or the WebP. Velardi, R. Navigli, P. D'Amadio
Mining the Web to Create Specialised Glossaries
IEEE Intelligent Systems, 23(5), IEEE Press, 2008, pp. 18-25. have been developed in the recent years. These methods typically start from domain

terminology Terminology is a group of specialized words and respective meanings in a particular field, and also the study of such terms and their use; the latter meaning is also known as terminology science. A ''term'' is a word, compound word, or multi-wor ...

and extract one or more glosses for each term of interest. Glosses can then be analyzed to extract

hypernym In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other wor ...

s of the defined term and other lexical and semantic relations.

References

External links

glossarist.com: The Glossarist
- Large list of glossaries

Selected Multilingual Glossaries by Industry {{Authority control Book design Lexicography

History

Core glossary

Automatic extraction of glossaries

See also

References

External links